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Passionate Engineering: 2014 Porsche Panamera sedan

Over Porsche’s 60-plus-year history, one thing has always distinguished its philosophy as a car company: a passionate, engineering-led approach that has produced world-class vehicles and innovations both on the road and racetrack. Porsche’s unique approach – and its unexpected engineering and design solutions – has delighted drivers from the very beginning.

A completely new design for a four-seat, high-performance premium sedan, the Panamera is unique in its class for being built from the ground up to meet a number of specific – and indeed, sometimes contradictory – design parameters. Not based on the platform of any other existing vehicle or merely a highly tuned version of an ordinary sibling, the Panamera has set new standards for packaging and technical innovation in the premium sedan segment.

The Porsche Panamera sports sedan lineup is expanding for the 2014 model year with the addition of three new variants: the Panamera S E-Hybrid, the first plug-in hybrid from Porsche; and two luxurious Executive versions for the Panamera 4S and Panamera Turbo models. The Executive versions feature an extended wheelbase and a completely new 3.0L twin-turbo V6 engine. With this launch, the Panamera line-up now increases to nine individual models that offer an extended range between sportiness and comfort.

The standard Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK) seven speed gearbox transfers torque to the street. An automatic engine start-stop system and seven seamlessly shifted gears with a super-tall seventh gear for cruising produce some of the best economy numbers and CO2 emissions in the class. The new Panamera S e-hybrid accomplishes the task with the use of an eight-speed Tiptronic automatic transmission.

The new Panamera S E-Hybrid improves upon the concept offered by the previous Panamera S Hybrid with a more powerful electric motor, a higher-performance battery that supplies more energy and is able be recharged from home or public vehicle charging stations. The electric drive produces more than double the power of the previous model’s electric motor. Electricity is stored in a newly developed lithium-ion battery, which has dramatically increased capacity over the previous battery. Via the integrated on-board charging componentry and the standard Porsche Universal Charger (AC), the battery can reach full charge within approximately two and a half hours when connected to a 240V power source.

In order to deliver the ride quality of a luxury car with the handling and precision Porsche customers expect from a sports car, the Panamera engineers developed an air suspension that can vary the volume of air on demand, giving it a wider range of comfort and performance setup options than any other car in the class. When driving aggressively, the system actually halves the amount of air at each corner of the car, stiffening the suspension in turns.

Optional Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC) further enhances both the performance and comfort of the Panamera, using active roll stabilization to eliminate body roll during cornering and disconnecting the rollbars altogether on rough roads for a smoother ride.

Inside the passenger cabin, an innovative Panamera interior concept with personalized seating comfort and choice of materials is seamlessly combined with familiar Porsche design elements. These include five circular instrument gauges, much like in the 911, with the tachometer in the middle and the ignition lock placed to the left of the steering wheel, which is the tradition at Porsche. The low, sporting seating position also reflects what’s found in the Porsche sports cars, giving the driver and passengers the direct feeling for the road so typical of a Porsche.

The Panamera interior, with a center console extending all the way through the interior from front to rear and sports car-style single seats, offers the driver optimum ergonomics while at the same time highlighting each passenger’s personal space. Unique to the class, rear passengers enjoy free, unrestricted visibility to the front, with the interior design giving rear-seat passengers a feeling of direct participation – a cockpit for four that involves everyone in the Porsche driving experience.